Satirical fiction and parodies
Penguin Books Ltd Animal Farm
Book SynopsisWhen the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another. Orwell''s chilling ''fairy story'' is a timeless and devastating satire of idealism betrayed by power and corruption.
£7.99
Penguin Books Ltd Vile Bodies
Book SynopsisEvelyn Waugh''s acidly funny novel of the Roaring Twenties, with an introduction by Simon JamesIn the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties'' Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade - whether promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires.''The high point of the experimental, original Waugh''Malcolm Bradbury, Sunday Times''This brilliantly funny, anxious and resonant novel ... the difficult edgy guide to the turn of the decade''Richard Jacobs
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Black Mischief Penguin Modern Classics
Book Synopsis''We are Progress and the New Age. Nothing can stand in our way.''When Oxford-educated Emperor Seth succeeds to the throne of the African state of Azania, he has a tough job on his hands. His subjects are ill-informed and unruly, and corruption, double-dealing and bloodshed are rife. However, with the aid if Minister of Modernization Basil Seal, Seth plans to introduce his people to the civilized ways of the west - but will it be as simple as that?
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Fortress Besieged Penguin Modern Classics
Book SynopsisSet on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war, Fortress Besieged recounts the exuberant misadventures of the hapless hero Fang Hung-chien, who after aimlessly studying in Europe at his family''s expense returns to Shanghai armed with a bogus degree from a fake university. On the liner back, Fang''s life becomes deeply entangled with those of two Chinese beauties - while when he does finally make it home, he obtains a teaching post at a newly established university, encounters effete pseudo-intellectuals, and falls into a marriage of disastrous proportions. A glorious tale of love, marriage, war, calamity, disillusionment and hope, this is one of the greatest Chinese novels: combining Eastern philosophy, Western traditions, adventure, tragicomedy and satire to create a unique feast of delights.
£11.39
Penguin Books Ltd Tristram Shandy
Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne''I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of the chapter, unless something be done ...''Laurence Sterne''s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ''hero'' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Animal Farm
Book Synopsis'All animals are equal - but some are more equal than others'When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless Ãlite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another. 'It is the history of a revolution that went wrong - and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine,' wrote Orwell for the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945. Orwell wrote the novel at the end of 1943, but it almost remained unpublished; its savage attack on Stalin, at that time Britain's ally, led to the book being refused by publisher after publisher. Orwell's simple, tragic fTrade ReviewRemains our great satire of the darker face of modern history -- Malcolm BradburyAnimal Farm has seen off all the opposition. It's as valid as today as it was fifty years ago -- Ralph Steadman
£7.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Book SynopsisEndlessly digressive, boundlessly imaginative and unmatched in its absurd and timeless witLaurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations. The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks's introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition. For more than sev
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Animal Farm
Book SynopsisPenguin presents the audiobook edition of Animal Farm by George Orwell.''All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others''When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another.(P) Penguin Audio 2021
£18.00
Penguin Books Ltd Cold Comfort Farm
Book SynopsisPresents a funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s, in which Flora, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm.
£15.30
Penguin Putnam Inc The Master and Margarita Penguin Classics Deluxe
Book Synopsis
£16.15
Penguin Putnam Inc Multiple Choice
Book Synopsis
£12.80
Penguin Putnam Inc From the Memoirs of a NonEnemy Combatant
Book Synopsis
£13.60
Penguin Books Ltd Black No More
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEach page unleashes a fusillade of gags and comic sequences, careening from slapstick to blood bath and back again. . . . To borrow a line from Schuyler, the plot twists get 'more complicated than a flapper's past'-and about as fun. . . . Black No More is unsparing on the madness of racial classification but frank, and very beautiful, on the lure of racial belonging * The New York Times *Extraordinary . . . A satiric tour de force that rips into myths of white supremacy, black nationalism and the American Dream -- Maureen Corrigan
£12.34
Penguin Books Ltd The Hanging on Union Square Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisA subversively comic, genre-bending satire of bourgeois life by an essential Chinese American voice, featuring an introduction by New Yorker writer Hua Hsu, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir Stay TrueA Penguin ClassicIt's Depression-era New York, and Mr. Nut, an oblivious American everyman, wants to strike it rich, even if at the moment he's unemployed, with no job prospects in sight. Over the course of a single night, in a narrative that unfolds hour by hour, he meets a cast of strange characters—disgruntled workers at a Communist cafeteria, lecherous old men, sexually exploited women, pesky authors—who eventually convince him to cast off his bourgeois aspirations for upward mobility and become a radical activist. Absurdist, inventive, and suffused with revolutionary fervor, and culminating in a dramatic face-off against capitalist power in the figure of the greedy businessman Mr. System, The Hanging on UnTrade Review“A surreal overnight journey . . . Thirty-year-old bestseller The Joy Luck Club perennially provides irrefutable proof Asian American stories warrant shelf space. That Penguin Classics—their venerable list considered a significant barometer of what comprises the Anglophone literary canon—has added this . . . is, undoubtedly, long-awaited, long-deserved recognition.” —The Christian Science Monitor“I finished H. T. Tsiang's masterpiece a few hours ago and I'm still not sure where I am and what day this is. My mind has been picked apart and reassembled. I need a drink.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story“[Tsiang] was radiant, boisterous, unforgettable.” —The New Yorker“A portrait of a New York City for the rich and the poor, the immigrant and the native-born, the newly homeless and the seasoned itinerant . . . Tsiang . . . tried to tell America what it really looked like. . . . [Unlike his] social-realist contemporaries—the Steinbecks and the dos Passoses— . . . Tsiang had little interest in steely, self-serious misery. In the book, as in his life, he is constantly cheeky and self-deprecating. . . . Tsiang’s manic spirit animates his voice. . . . Though the book’s formal aspects range from jarring to quaint to delightful, they all reflect the infectious freedom with which Tsiang wrote. His flinging disregard for the fashionable and the novelistic are thrilling, but so are the serious, deep convictions underlying them. For anyone with revolutionary sympathies, it’s an emotionally stirring book.” —The Nation“This is a voice to which the white world . . . will have to listen more and more as time passes.” —Upton Sinclair “[The Hanging on Union Square] felt like slipping into another person's hallucination.” —Hua Hsu, from the Introduction“[A] masterwork.” —Floyd Cheung, from the Afterword“Tsiang's writings are quintessentially of the intermingled (and dangerous) public street culture of downtown Manhattan creative life. He carried the mantle, unknowingly, of Wong Chin Foo—who five decades earlier challenged Denis Kearney to a duel with Irish potatoes at Cooper Union's Great Hall. And we, the Mr. Nut faction of the Asian American movement, carry on Tsiang's spirit!” —John Kuo Wei Tchen, author of New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882“An artist of distinction, H. T. Tsiang created a genre unto itself in 1935 with The Hanging on Union Square. Its republication after seventy-five years rescues—from an outlaw existence—a strangely and beautifully evocative satiric allegory.” —Alan Wald, author of American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War“[The Hanging on Union Square] is original in form without being labored; and it's remarkable for its whimsical insights into various strata of society and for its flashing counterpoint of almost savage sensuality and delicate pity. Throughout, it is alive and evocative. Mr. Tsiang's fanciful and often fantastic visions . . . convey more truth than a shelf of reportorial novels.” —Waldo Frank
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Black Empire
Book SynopsisA pioneering work of Afrofuturism and antiracist fiction by the author of Black No More, about a Black scientist who masterminds a worldwide conspiracy to take back the African continent from imperial powers?for fans of the Oscar-nominated film American FictionA Penguin Classic?An amazing serial story of Black genius against the world? is how Black Empire was promoted upon its original publication as a serial in The Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1938.It tells the electrifying tale of Dr. Henry Belsidus, a Black scientific genius desperate to free his people from the crushing tyranny of racism. To do so, he concocts a plot to enlist a crew of Black intellectuals to help him take over the world, cultivating a global network to reclaim Africa from imperial powers and punish Europe and America for white supremacy and their crimes against the planet?s Black population.At once a daring, high-stakes science fiction adventure and a strikingly innovative Afrofuturist classic, this controversial and fearlessly political work lays bare the ethical quandaries of exactly how far one should go in the name of justice.For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Trade Review“An incredible science fiction novel . . . It’s just a fantastic book, filled with romance and war and politics. I loved this book, and I couldn’t have been more surprised by it.” ―Bill Goldstein, NBC’s Weekend Today in New York“Imagine W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and Marcus Garvey rolled into one fascist superman, and there you have Dr. Henry Belsidus. . . . [Black Empire is] an Afrocentrist’s dream.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times Book Review“Indispensable reading for anyone interested in early Afrofuturism . . . Searing in its indictment of entrenched racism . . . Rip-roaring yarns with sharp satirical points.” ―Publishers Weekly“Fascinating . . . A proto-Afrofuturist potboiler poised between Black Panther and the works of Percival Everett . . . Lurid, pulpy fun.” ―Library Journal“A fascinating piece of work . . . Fast-paced, action packed . . . A solid read―there’s good adventure here, and Schuyler tells his story quite well―and it’s also of literary-historical interest. The Penguin Classics edition is also an excellent one, from editor Brooks E. Hefner’s useful Introduction to the interesting appendices.” ―The Complete Review
£14.39
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Keep The Aspidistra Flying
Book SynopsisA pre-cursor to his more famous works of Animal Farm and 1984, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is Orwell’s social commentary on capitalism’s constraints.
£12.80
Penguin Books Ltd Cold Comfort Farm
Book SynopsisOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels That Shaped Our World''''Brilliant ... very probably the funniest book ever written'' Sunday TimesWhen sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and ruthless parody of rural melodramas and purple prose, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.''Screamingly funny and wildly subversive'' Marian Keyes, GuardianThe Penguin Classics edition of Stella Gibbons''s Cold Comfort Farm is introduced by Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.If you enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm you might like George and Weedon Grossmith''s Diary of a Nobody, also available in Penguin Classics.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Animal Farm
Book SynopsisWhen the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master, Mr Jones, and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless elite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another. Orwell''s chilling ''fairy story'' is a timeless and devastating satire of idealism betrayed by power and corruption.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Lolly Willowes
Book Synopsis''A great shout of life and individuality ... an act of defiance that gladdens the soul'' Guardian Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. But Lolly has a greater, far darker calling than family: witchcraft. ''The book I''ll be pressing into people''s hands forever . . . It tells the story of a woman who rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favour of freedom ... tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness'' Helen Macdonald''Witty, eerie, tender ... her prose, in its simple, abrupt evocations, has something preternatural about it'' John UpdikeTrade ReviewA great shout of life and individuality. -- Justine Jordan * Guardian *The book I'll be pressing into people's hands forever is Lolly Willowes [. . .] Starting as a straightforward, albeit beautifully written family saga, it tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness -- Helen Macdonald * The New York Times Book Review *Sylvia Townsend Warner moves with sombre confidence into the realm of the supernatural, and her prose, in its simple, abrupt evocations, has something preternatural about it -- John UpdikeMy comfort read -- Tracey Thorn
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd CloseUp Penguin Modern Classics
Book Synopsis''Stylish and stimulating'' The TimesAgeing Hollywood star Marshall Stone is scared. Scared that the parts are drying up. Scared of being forgotten. So when he hears an eminent author is writing his biography, Stone siezes the chance of immortality. But painful memories and suppressed scandals soon threaten to destroy the carefully-constructed fiction of his life. Inspired by Len Deighton''s own experiences of the film industry, Close-Up is a brilliant exposé of the sleaze, venality and betrayals of the studio machine.''The richness, the sardonic humour, the wheeling and dealing ... the power of the book is undoubted'' Evening StandardTrade ReviewThe film industry is in many ways the ideal subject for Mr Deighton's talents. * Times Literary Supplement *Immense skill ... a stylish and stimulating performance. * The Times *The richness, the sardonic humour, the wheeling and dealing world of the films with its parties, its highly coloured characters ... The power of the book is undoubted. * Evening Standard *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Black No More Being an Account of the Strange and
Book Synopsis''A liberating and lacerating critique of American racial madness, capitalism and white superiority ... Schuyler''s wild, misanthropic, take-no-prisoners satire of American life seems more relevant than ever ... Afrofuturist before such a term existed'' New York Review of Books Telling the extraordinary story of a mysterious process that can turn black skin white in 1930s America, Black No More is a pioneering and caustic work of Black speculative fiction from one of the great Harlem Renaissance authors.''A clever and biting satire'' Isabel Wilkerson, The New York Times Book Review''No one is safe from Schuyler''s biting mockery'' The New York TimesTrade ReviewA liberating and lacerating critique of American racial madness, capitalism, and white superiority . . . Black No More resists the push toward preaching and the urge toward looking backward into history. Afrofuturist before such a term existed, it insists, instead, on peering forward into what could come to be. * The New York Review of Books *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Book Synopsis''L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard''One of the greatest novels ever written, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition Laurence Sterne''s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first ''postmodern'' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ''hero'' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida E
£18.00
Penguin Books Ltd The Master And Margarita
Book Synopsis
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Lolly Willowes
Book SynopsisIntroducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. But Lolly has a greater, far darker calling than family: witchcraft.''The book I''ll be pressing into people''s hands forever is Lolly Willowes . . . Starting as a straightforward, albeit beautifully written family saga, it tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness'' Helen MacdonaldTrade ReviewThe book I'll be pressing into people's hands forever is Lolly Willowes . . . Starting as a straightforward, albeit beautifully written family saga, it tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness -- Helen Macdonald * The New York Times Book Review *A great shout of life and individuality ... an act of defiance that gladdens the soul -- Justine Jordan * Guardian *My comfort read -- Tracey Thorn
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Vile Bodies
Book SynopsisThe Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires.Evelyn Waugh''s acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Decline and Fall
Book SynopsisEvelyn Waugh''s hilarious debut novel, now in a beautiful hardback edition with a new Introduction by Barbara CookeSent down from Oxford in outrageous circumstances, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly unsurprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle. His colleagues are an assortment of misfits, rascals and fools, including Prendy (plagued by doubts) and Captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze. As the farce unfolds and the young run riot, no one is safe, least of all Paul.''His first, most perfect novel ... ruthlessly comic'' John Mortimer, Guardian
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Scoop
Book SynopsisLord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of The Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs Algernon Stitch, he feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising little war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. But for, pale, ineffectual William Boot, editor of the Daily Beast''s ''nature notes'' column, being mistaken for a competent journalist may prove to be a fatal error...
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Reginalds Christmas Revel
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Indiana University Press Blue White Red A Novel Global African Voices
Book SynopsisA searing commentary on the lives of Africans in FranceTrade ReviewAlain Mabanckou counts as one of the most successful voices of young African literature in the French language. -- Ulrich Schreiber * Internationales literaturfestival berlin *Alain Mabanckou can be defined as the 'clear guide' of a new generation of Congolese writers. * Infopagecongo *Blue White Red stands at the beginning of the author's remarkable and multifaceted career as a novelist, essayist and poet...this debut novel shows much of his style and substance in remarkable ways...Dundy's translation is excellent. * Africa Book Club *Mabanckou's provocative novel probes the many facets of the 'migration adventure,' including the shame that accompanies migrants home when their foreign sojourn ends in failure. * Booklist *Mabanckou dazzles with technical dexterity and emotional depth. Vulnerability beckons in this masterful story about a world we always knew was too good to be true, yet reminds us that new skies appear and new seasons begin. (Starred review) * Publishers Weekly *
£12.34
Indiana University Press The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix
Book SynopsisSet in the imaginary African Republic of Vietongo, The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, begins when conflict breaks out between rival leaders and the regional ethnic groups they represent. Award-winning author Alain Mabanckou is at his satiric best in this novel that catalogues the pain and suffering caused by the ravages of civil war. Trade ReviewNearly twenty years removed from its French publication, Mabanckou's aptitude for characterization and his unflinching glimpse of plight echo within every movement of Vercingetorix. With The Negro Grandsons of Vercingetorix, Mabanckou stresses that even as violence is an accomplice to life, perseverance is synonymous. * World Literature Today *
£15.19
Random House USA Inc Unusual Uses for Olive Oil
Book SynopsisWelcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology. Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain he is due—a quest which has the tendency to go hilariously astray. In Unusual Uses for Olive Oil, von Igelfeld experiences a series of new adventures. First, he finds that his academic rival Detlev-Amadeus Unterholzer has been winning undeserved recognition, a situation that must be addressed. Then von Igelfeld stumbles toward a romance with Frau Benz, a charming widow who owns her very own Schloss and a fleet of handsome cars—that is, until a faux pas lands him on the curb. Later, while on the annual student study retreat in the Alps, von Igelfeld fearlessly plunges 3000 feet into mountaineering history, and turns his survival into the subject of inspirational lectures. Finally, at a dinner party, he is the only kind soul who ca
£12.75
Random House USA Inc Seating Arrangements Vintage Contemporaries
Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The irresistible story of a summer New England wedding weekend gone awry—a deliciously biting satirical glimpse into the lives of the well-bred and ill-behaved, from the New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle.The Van Meters have gathered at their family retreat on the island of Waskeke to celebrate the marriage of daughter Daphne—seven months pregnant—to the impeccably appropriate Greyson Duff. The weekend is full of champagne, salt air and practiced bonhomie, but long-buried discontent and simmering lust stir beneath the surface. Winn Van Meter, father of the bride, is not having a good time. Barred from the exclusive social club he’s been eyeing since birth, he’s also tormented by an inappropriate crush on Daphne’s beguiling bridesmaid, Agatha, and the fear that his daughter, Livia—recently h
£15.26
Little, Brown & Company Black Mischief
Book Synopsis
£22.49
Little, Brown & Company Put Out More Flags
Book Synopsis
£22.49
Little, Brown & Company The Loved One
Book Synopsis
£22.49
Little, Brown & Company Unconditional Surrender
Book Synopsis
£22.49
Lee Boudreaux Books Less
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Back Bay Books Less
Book SynopsisA struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of arresting lyricism and beauty (The New York Times Book Review).WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZENational BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of 2017A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book AwardWho says you can''t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can''t say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can''t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitation
£15.29
Little, Brown & Company Startup A Novel
Book SynopsisFrom the veteran online journalist Doree Shafrir, a sharp, hugely entertaining story of youth, ambition, love, money and technology's inability to hack human nature.
£12.34
Little, Brown & Company Startup
Book Synopsis From veteran online journalist and BuzzFeed writer Doree Shafrir comes a hilarious debut novel that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve. Mack McAllister has a $600 million dollar idea. His mindfulness app, TakeOff, is already the hottest thing in tech and he''s about to launch a new and improved version that promises to bring investors running and may turn his brainchild into a $1 billion dollar business -- in startup parlance, an elusive unicorn. Katya Pasternack is hungry for a scoop that will drive traffic. An ambitious young journalist at a gossipy tech blog, Katya knows that she needs more than another PR friendly puff piece to make her the go-to byline for industry news. Sabrina Choe Blum just wants to stay afloat. The exhausted mother of two and failed creative writer is trying to escape from her credit card debt and an inattentive husband-who also happens to be Katya''s boss-as she rejoins a work force that has got
£18.00
Little, Brown & Company Terminal Lance Ultimate Omnibus
Book Synopsis The ultimate collection from Maximilian Uriarte, author of The New York Times bestselling The White Donkey and creator of the world''s most popular military comic strip. The eagerly awaited Terminal Lance Ultimate Omnibus will finally deliver the complete collection that fans of the military''s most popular comic strip have been clamoring for. With over 500 strips, the collection will feature hundreds of the serialized comics published on terminallance.com, with additional comics previously published only on Marine Corps Times newspaper, and new, never-before-published comics. The Omnibus also includes Uriarte''s signature blog entries and previously unpublished bonus material. Covering a wide range of topics, including the rules governing the wearing of military uniforms, the most popular (and the most disgusting) MREs, the difficulty of keeping a long-distance relationship alive across thousands of miles, and the struggles marines face upon returning home, Terminal Lance Ultimate Omnibus provides a hilarious and deeply intelligent look into every aspect of life for American Marines.
£20.90
Little Brown and Company How I Won a Nobel Prize A Novel
Book SynopsisNamed One of the Best Books of the Year by VOGUE and VOX. The Free Press's August Book Club pick. A 'very funny, very good' (B. J. Novak) debut novel about a graduate student who follows her disgraced mentor to a university that gives safe harbor to scholars of ill repute, igniting a crisis of work and a test of her conscience (and marriage) Helen is one of the brightest minds of her generation: a young physicist on a path to solve high-temperature superconductivity (which could save the planet). When she discovers that her brilliant adviser is involved in a sex scandal, Helen is torn: should she give up on her work with him? Or should she accompany him to a controversial university, founded by a provocateur billionaire, that hosts academics other schools have thrown out? Helen decides she must go—her work is too important. She brings along her partner, Hew, who is much less sanguine about living on an island where t
£20.25
Pan Macmillan Lost For Words
Book SynopsisEach of the judges of the Elysian Prize for literature has a reason for accepting the job. For the chairman, MP Malcolm Craig, it is backbench boredom, media personality Jo Cross is on the hunt for a 'relevant' novel, and Oxbridge academic Vanessa Shaw is determined to discover good writing. But for Penny Feathers of the Foreign Office, it's all just getting in the way of writing her own thriller. Over the next few weeks they must read hundreds of submissions to find the best book of the year, and so the judges spar, cajole and bargain in order that their chosen title gets the recognition it deserves.Meanwhile, a host of authors are desperate for Elysian glory, including brilliant writer and serial heart-breaker Katherine Burns, lovelorn debut novelist Sam Black, and Sonny, convinced that his magnum opus, The Mulberry Elephant, will take the literary world by storm.Lost for Words is razor-sharp and fabulously entertaining. It cuts to the quiTrade ReviewBelly-achingly hilarious. * Sunday Times *Written with restless wit . . . a pleasure. * Observer *What makes you smile, and smile, and smile is the elegance of the writing. Seldom was so much pretentiousness skewered so stylishly. * Novel of the Week, Mail on Sunday *Everything St. Aubyn writes is worth reading for the cleansing rancor of his intelligence and the fierce elegance of his prose. -- Anne Enright * New York Times Book Review *Black and brilliant stuff . . . Very clever and extremely funny. * The Times *
£8.99
Hodder & Stoughton The Life and Loves of a She Devil
Book Synopsis''ONE OF OUR VERY BEST WRITERS'' Sunday Times''A tour de force''The Times''Intoxicating''Daily Telegraph''Devilishly delightful''New York Times Book Review''Beautifully and compellingly written''Sunday Express''Audacious''Times Literary SupplementTHE BESTSELLING CLASSIC TALE OF A WOMAN SCORNED, FROM A MUCH-LOVED BRITISH AUTHORRuth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish.Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk Trade ReviewA tour de force: a macabre, fast-moving moral fable * The Times *More audacious and striking in design than anything that has gone before . . . carried out with such dash and glitter * Times Literary Supplement *Rousing . . . stimulating . . . the fun grows steadily blacker and wilder * Guardian *A savage, sadistic even, but beautifully and compellingly written satire * Sunday Express *Intoxicating * Daily Telegraph *A novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned * New York Magazine *Devilishly delightful . . . It affords a scintillating, mindboggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasised dishing out retribution for one wrong or another * New York Times Book Review *What makes this a powerfully funny and oddly powerful book is the energy of the language and of the intellect that conceived it, an energy that vibrates off the pages and that makes She Devil as exceptional a book in the remembering as in the reading . . . . a small, mad masterpiece * Washington Post *Fantastic . . . a carefully worked-out fable, satiric and finally bitter . . . it's very funny * Chicago Tribune *
£9.49
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Beautiful You
Book SynopsisPenny Harrigan is a low-level associate in a big Manhattan law firm. She has an apartment, but no love life. When C. Linus Maxwell, a mega-billionaire and international playboy, invites her to dinner and then whisks her off to a hotel in Paris, where he brings her to undreamed-of heights of sexual gratification for days on end, Penny is, well, pleased. However, when Penny discovers she is a test subject for a line of female sex toys so effective that women by the millions are lining up outside the stores to buy it on opening day, she understands the gravity the situation. A billion husbands are about to be replaced. What is Maxwell really up to? Erotically enabled world domination? Penny sets out to discover his motivations, and with a little help, stop him before it is too late.
£16.20
Random House USA Inc Make Something Up
Book Synopsis
£15.30
Little, Brown Book Group Crewe Train Virago Modern Classics
Book SynopsisDenham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive life and thrown into the social whirl of London by her sophisticated relatives. Denham, however, provides a candid response to the niceties of ''civilised'' behaviour. CREWE TRAIN is one of Macaulay''s wittiest satires. The reactions of Denham to the manners and modes of the highbrow circle in which she finds herself provide a devastating - and very funny - social commentary as well as a moving story.This bitingly funny, elegantly written comedy of manners is as absorbing and entertaining today as on the book''s first publication in 1967.Trade ReviewRose Macaulay is ripe for rediscovery * The Times *One of her very wittiest books * Observer *A pleasure and a triumph -- Eric LinklaterRose Macaulay, who is probably the cleverest of our novelists, has given us yet another of her glittering novels * Country Life *One of the few authors of whom it may be said she adorns our century -- Elizabeth Bowen
£9.49
Little, Brown Book Group Hollywood
Book SynopsisContinuing what has been dubbed his ''revenge on two hundred years of American history'', Gore Vidal locates this novel in Washington. But this is 1917, and Hollywood is now competing with America''s capital as the nation''s power-base, just as it fights for centre-stage in this book. Caroline Sanford, erstwhile newspaper magnate, launches herself into the West Coast land of celluloid dreams and becomes, overnight, an international star. Not for nothing, on the dawn of World War One, is Caroline making films like the Huns from Hell. She is a government agent. But in Washington, that government isn''t doing awfully well. Weighed down by his League of Nation''s failure, by Roosevelt, Clemenceau, a stroke and the ship-like tonnage of his wife Edith, President Woodrow Wilson is on the wane - and Warren Harding is on the up. A popular, handsome, toothpick-chomping philanderer and dimwit whose wife is given to consulting spiritualists, he is about to usher in a new era. One of unprecedented Trade ReviewAddictive ... almost indecently entertaining * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW *Rich, readable stuff, and only Vidal could make it work * FINANCIAL TIMES *Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels or novelised histories' Gabriel García Márquez
£13.49
